1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a load port of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical loading section 100 of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus at which disk-shaped semiconductor wafers are loaded into the apparatus. The loading section 100 includes a load port (200 in FIG. 2), a mini-chamber 110 having a wafer transfer robot 112 and a door opening robot (not shown), and a load lock chamber 120. A wafer cassette 130 that stores disk-shaped wafers is safely placed by hand or by an automated material handling system (AMHS) onto the load port 200 outside the mini-chamber 110. A front opening unified pod (FOUP) is widely used as the wafer cassette 130 for wafers that are 300 mm in diameter.
Subsequently, the door opening robot of the mini-chamber 110 opens a door 132 of the wafer cassette 130. Then the wafer transfer robot 112 transfers the wafers stacked in the cassette 130 into the load lock chamber 110. The wafers are transferred from the load lock chamber 120 to a process chamber (not shown).
Referring now to FIG. 2, the load port 200 onto which the FOUP 130 is placed includes a plurality of kinematic coupling pins 220 and a plurality of sensors 240 arrayed on a flat surface thereof. The FOUP 130 includes grooves (not shown) that receive the kinematic coupling pins 220 when the FOUP 130 is placed on the load port 200. The sensors 240 contact a portion of a bottom surface of the FOUP 130 to sense whether the FOUP 130 is properly resting on the load port 200.
If the sensors 240 do not sense that the FOUP 130 is positioned properly on the load port 200, a subsequent process is not executed. That is, the process in which the door opening robot opens the door 132 of the FOUP 130 and the wafer transfer robot 112 transfers wafers from the FOUP 130 into the load lock chamber 120, will not be carried out.
In the load port 200 shown in FIG. 2, the kinematic coupling pins 220 substantially contact the FOUP 130 to support it and the sensors 240 only sense whether the FOUP 130 is properly resting on the load port 200. Therefore, if a foreign object or substance lies on the sensors 240, the sensors 240 can incorrectly sense that the FOUP 130 is properly situated on the load port 200. In addition, the sensors 240 are not as tall as the kinematic coupling pins 220. Therefore, even when the FOUP 130 is resting properly on the kinematic coupling pins 220, a bottom surface of the FOUP 130 may not sufficiently contact the sensors 240. In this case, the sensor 240 will not perform properly, i.e., will not correctly sense the presence of the FOUP 130.
Still further, the load port 200 can not determine whether wafers are stored in the wafer cassette. An empty wafer cassette 130 can sometimes be erroneously transferred onto the load port 200. In this case, even though the wafer cassette 130 is properly placed on the load port 200, a subsequent process is initiated. Accordingly, a processing error occurs.
An object of the present invention is to overcome the problems described above.
More specifically, one object of the present invention is to provide a load port that can accurately sense whether a wafer cassette has been properly placed thereon in preparation for the loading of wafers into a chamber of a manufacturing apparatus.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a load port which can discriminate whether a wafer cassette placed thereon contains any semiconductor wafers.
In order to achieve the above objects, the load port of the present invention includes a support member, a plurality of kinematic coupling pins projecting upwardly from the support member, and a plurality of sensors integrated with the coupling pins.
The sensors are operable to sense for the presence of the bottom of the cassette and thereby determine whether the wafer cassette is resting properly on the load port. The contact of each sensor, except at an upper end thereof, is embedded in a respective kinematic coupling pin. The upper end of the sensor protrudes from the kinematic coupling pin. Preferably, at least three kinematic coupling pins and corresponding sensors are arrayed on the support member so as to balance a wafer cassette that is placed properly thereon. The sensors may be photo sensors or on-off sensors (switches). Alternatively, the sensors may be weight-detecting sensors that make use of piezoelectric elements. The wafer cassette has grooves in the bottom surface thereof, and the grooves receive the kinematic coupling pins and the sensors when the wafer cassette properly rests on the load port.
According to the present invention, it is possible to accurately sense whether the wafer cassette is situated properly on the support member of the load port and/or to discriminate whether the wafer cassette contains any wafers, because the sensors are integrate with the kinematic coupling pins which support the cassette directly. Thus, the reliability of the semiconductor manufacturing process is enhanced.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of loading wafers into a chamber of a semiconductor apparatus that prevents processing errors from occurring.
To achieve this object, the method of the present invention entails detecting for the presence of the bottom of the cassette at a plurality of sites located on the upper surface of the support member, and measuring the load exerted by the cassette. If the bottom of the cassette is detected as being present at each of the detection sites, then the cassette is determined to be resting properly for the transfer of wafers therefrom. And, if the load exceeds a predetermined value corresponding to the weight of a cassette, then it is determined that the cassette contains a wafer(s). A control signal is issued to initiate the manufacturing process only once these conditions are established is. In particular, the door of the cassette is opened, and a robot is commanded to transfer wafers from the cassette into a chamber of the manufacturing apparatus.
The manufacturing process is thus never initiated when the cassette is situated improperly on the load port or not at all, and/or when the cassette is situated properly but does not contain wafers.